U.S. fiscal deal to dampen consumption: economists (2)

The hit, however, will not be as severe as the spate of tax hikes that would have gone into effect if Congress had failed to avert the fiscal cliff, Brown added.

Those sentiments were echoed in a report released Wednesday by New York-based BlackRock, the world's biggest money manager.

"The fiscal drag left in place by the deal, coupled with the lingering uncertainty surrounding the debt ceiling, leads us to expect a weak economic start to 2013," the report said, referring to the looming debt ceiling talks.

"The market consensus currently is for first-quarter growth to be roughly 1.6 percent, a rate we find to be overly optimistic," the report said. "We do expect the U.S. economy to rebound later this year, but it is unlikely to accelerate above a 2 percent annual growth rate."